Last month I laid out a brief history of rich media, and the pattern there was one of increased capability, speed and accessibility. While computer costs have come down dramatically, the professional software has always been pricey. The same can be said for the evolution of print design where pro results don’t come cheap.

But let’s focus on video for a moment, which is by far one of the hottest areas on the media front. This is where cost barriers have changed dramatically.

Ten years ago…

…a professional film editing system started at about $40,000. Today you can get into a professional system with software for as little as $2000.

…a 35mm cinema camera and a decent lens started at $75,000. Film and processing added considerable cost, not to mention time, travel and personnel. Today a DSLR camera, lenses and SD storage card can be had for $1500.

Today lighting, effects, audio hardware and software cost a fraction of what they did just one decade ago. Cheap and fast storage make the shooting, capture and transfer of film-quality footage virtually instantaneous. There are few technical barriers to creating the highest quality film content.

Inexpensive tools – good enough for professionals

As evidence, consider that last year’s season finale of the Emmy-award-winning House was shot on Canon DSLR cameras. This got the profession buzzing (see this interesting blog post on it including a Q&A tweet session with director Greg Yaitanes). And of course, CNN and other news sites rebroadcast momentous events shot on the simplest of consumer cameras and cell phones. The newest generation of smart phones and Flip cameras shoot extremely impressive 720p high definition video, with 1080p not far behind.

The game has definitely changed.

The only remaining barriers

Today the only remaining barriers to entry in creating video are time, talent and training – and of course having a subject worthy of shooting. Given our growing appetite for online video (according to a recent study, consumption is growing on average by 2.8% every month in the US ) the audiences are more plentiful and diverse. YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing sites have flattened distribution and are taking more and more people away from traditional broadcast channels.

Taking online content back to the TV

And finally, add the recent developments in Roku, AppleTV (GoogleTV was about to be released as of this writing) and now moving online content back to your TV is possible for less than $100. Xbox and PS3 consoles are a bit more. It should be noted that some hardcore techies have been doing this on PCs (e.g., MS Media Center) and Macs for years, but now we’re seeing prices and interest begin to bring everything down to the holiday “must have” level. Some newer TVs even have YouTube and other apps built right in.

So what does all this mean to businesses, marketers and educators? How do we “chase the eyeballs” that are leaving traditional media and moving to the wild west of media made anywhere by anybody?

I’ll cover that next month.